


Moments After I Have Dreamed

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: College AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments After I Have Dreamed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back to the series writing. comment with anything. 
> 
> *note: football sometimes refers to soccer and sometimes refers to American football.

The agony of the cold winter began with the startling, choking feeling of love. Just as the leaves were beginning to fall to the ground and breath was becoming more and more visible in the air, it so happened that a boy became visible to another boy, and the unrequited nature of that attention resembled the cruelty of the New England winters. 

It was like this in the beginning with the sweltering, humid September: vulgar flirting, harmless but dirty, drunk eyes across a drunker room; no one really knows anyone’s name. They’re just there to forget. Cesc was small and unaware, frequently drinking and blacking out, texting his friends in the morning to find out about last night’s mistakes. He didn’t know his own power, so when he received attention from many, he ignored them all, chocking it up to a joke, false attention, someone has a sense of humor. It was the No One Actually Thinks I’m Pretty logic. 

So when a beautiful loud boy gave him attention, it was nothing, it was nothing, it was missing a nothing, not missing a chance. And when the beautiful loud boy established himself as The Beautiful and Loud Boy, then Cesc started paying attention, and as the weeks went by, he heard more. He saw more. He partied more and he drank harder, slowly developing a sense of control and awareness that aligned with his infrequent trips to the gym and the knowledge that he was developing a beer belly at eighteen. As the muscles in his arms were beginning to lose their definition and the curious burst of energy in his eyes was beginning to wane, he became enchanted with the idea of interest. He thought about his hook-ups and his randoms and his blowjobs in bar bathrooms, and he realized that eighteen and wild was lovely, but eighteen and interested was lovelier. 

Because all the boys were boring. All the scratches on his back hurt, but they didn’t hurt hard enough to make him feel something more than the physical. He didn’t want love; he didn’t need a relationship; he just needed something with an edge. He didn’t want random interest; he wanted specific interest. Not I’m Interested in Cesc Because He’s Easy. He wanted I’m Interested in Cesc because he’s wicked hot, because he’s Cesc, because he has something in his eyes that makes me want to bend him over a table and fuck him senseless. 

But specific interest was rather hard to find those days, when the wardrobes became heavier and the parties turned into the same people gathering around liquor, so when he heard a thread of conversation involving Sergio, the loud boy in the next dorm over, he was swept back into the heat of September, remembering nights he’d never known and drifting into conversations he’d never been a part of. 

The September heat had taken his mind, and he realized in the middle of a drunk night, after seeing Sergio across a beer pong table in a dark room, that he was violently in love with the summer interest he’d been shown. The vulgar texts, the harmless flirting, the way he’d casually rejected Sergio’s initial advances-- he was in love with it all, but mostly he was in love with Sergio’s eyes and hands and face, the way he walked and the way he talked, the ridiculous douchebag baseball caps he wore backwards, and the way he squinted his eyes when he was trying to conduct himself high. 

But he kept it to himself for awhile, at least at first. This was something he needed to smother because he was the boy who found a new boy three times a week, not the boy who kept himself hidden for someone who wouldn’t even look. Unrequited wasn’t an adjective he would ever use to describe his affection; it was always returned or he didn’t feel it at all. 

Weeks passed, and he was wandering down a hallway on a blurry Wednesday night when Sergio appeared behind him, cheerful and slurring, beckoning him over. He had one arm wrapped around his friend, and he was smiling like an idiot, and Cesc felt that small burst of excitement that no one else produced in him. He started forward, abandoning the other dorm parties he’d promised to attend. 

It was stupid fun. It was crazy fun. It was drinking straight from the bottle and passing it and drinking from the bottle again, turning to partner up with someone to play beer pong and shouting the lyrics to the explicit version of a song they used to hear at middle school dances with the cuss words smoothed over. 

They had just decided to cut out for the bars when there was a loud knock on the door. It hung in the air for a moment, tying the music up into a little scared ball of sound. Someone shuffled over to the speaker and smacked it once to shut it up. Everyone stood in the room for a moment, and one of the slim, small girls near the door stood on her tiptoes to peek through the peephole. 

She swung her dark curls over one shoulder and said, as calmly as she could manage, “I think they said RA, but it’s probably someone just fucking around.” She swung it open without consultation, and there was a blond boy with an unamused face, even less amused when he noticed the table and the ping-pong ball, and the beer. 

“Seriously?” 

Most everyone cut out immediately. Cesc took one look at Sergio and wanted to run, but he wanted to stay more. He started for the door, and the RA looked him up and down, “I can’t stop you, but if you go, your friends are in more trouble.” 

He gestured to Sergio and his roommate, and the decision was made for Cesc. He took the clipboard and wrote his name down next to the other guilty students; later, when he thought about it, Cesc couldn’t decide if he stepped forward and spelled his name because of his interest in Sergio or because it was the right thing to do. There were both feelings within him, some sense of loyalty burning in his veins alongside his passion for the other boy. 

They cleaned the room out after. It was quiet, just him, the RAs, and Sergio. His roommate had split. They threw out full cans of beer, opened the fridge and cleared out the alcohol Sergio had purchased earlier that day; they threw out half-empty handles and soggy napkins. The trash can was overflowing with its newfound wealth. 

When the RA wasn’t looking, Cesc bent over and looked innocent and snuck a handle of vodka into the sheets of one of the beds. He thought Sergio might be proud, and there was that burning feeling in his chest; he was anxious and afraid and feeling more than he wanted to. 

But it was a hurricane Wednesday, so it didn’t matter what he was feeling because he could cover it with alcohol, so when he rejoined his friends later at the bar, he tried not to feel too guilty for the text he sent Sergio about the vodka in the sheets, and he tried not to smile too hard when Sergio sent his ridiculous text back: “You the real MVP for not ditching like the rest.” 

Sergio was pleased about the vodka, but he was more pleased about the loyalty, and Cesc knew he was more in love than ever, not just with the interest that Sergio had shown, not just for the drugs and alcohol he consistently provided, not for the seamless fun. For the boy and for his smile and for the way that he was. 

\+ 

They hung out more, and one night after playing a dozen drinking games, when everyone else had vomited up their insides and called it a night, it was Sergio, Cesc, and another boy with a grim interest in anything that could fuck him up. They shared a cigar casually outside one of the dorms on the edge of campus, talking about the games they’d played and itching to start another. 

They settled on another round of Never Have I Ever, and later Cesc wouldn’t remember the specifics, but he remembered the feeling of excitement, just for being near Sergio, just for speaking to him. Sure, he wanted to fuck him. Sure, he thought about it a lot. He wanted to kiss him badly. So badly that Sergio’s lips began to look like a cure for his fatal affliction. But more than wanting a cure, he wanted conversation. A kiss would be exceeding expectations, and it would be the fulfillment of his desires, and it would be the crown jewel kiss on a crown of dream kisses, but it wouldn’t be conversation. It wouldn’t be Sergio’s lips moving in that kind of way. 

He couldn’t sort out his thoughts, and he couldn’t remember exactly what they were talking about, but he wanted to spend time with this boy, and that thought fucked him up more than anything. They sat in the common room of the third boy’s dorm for a long time, and Cesc was perfectly comfortable with the two of them, wanting one more than the other and trying not to show it. 

“How many since you’ve been here?” Hookups, he meant. They were exchanging a new kind of number. 

“Roughly…” Cesc scratched his chin. “Less than seventeen, more than ten.” 

He gave them a large window in case they were the kind of boys who congratulated and then turned around and separated: “Cesc is cool, but he’s not going to treat you as well as I would.” That kind of logic, that kind of boy; it scared him, so the number was a vague range, as if he couldn’t remember when, really, he had a physical list sitting somewhere in the notes on his phone. 

Cesc didn’t remember the third boy’s reaction. He was just there as a go-between. He remembered Sergio’s nod. He kept his eyes mostly on the TV, but he nodded, shrugged a little. He was too chill to lecture, too chill to care. Cesc was still lost somewhere in September, wishing for their humid game. 

Third Boy walked up to his room, and Sergio and Cesc decided it was time to disperse to their dorms, and on the way back Cesc was shivering because he’d forgotten a jacket. He never brought a jacket. What was the sense of a jacket when he drank so much he didn’t feel the cold? He didn’t even know what cold was on these nights. 

“You’re shivering.” 

“I’m not,” Cesc assured him, shivering. 

“You are,” Sergio laughed. “Take my jacket.” 

“No. We’re at your dorm.” They hesitated near the door. It was dark, and Cesc was in September, shivering and craving the jacket not for the warmth it would provide but for the feel of what had been there just a moment before. 

“It’s okay,” Sergio said. “I don’t mind. Really. You can just give it back to me now or anytime.” 

Cesc wanted it badly, but he stuck his jaw up defiantly and said, “I don’t need it, really. It’s literally a two minute walk. I’m not going to freeze to death.” 

Sergio offered it up two more times, and two more times Cesc rejected it out of pride. He didn’t want to wake up in the morning smelling of Sergio and regretting having taken the jacket like some weak, lovesick animal. 

He walked back to his dorm freezing cold, wanting to die harder than ever before, and he collapsed onto his roommate’s bed with a sickness in his eyes. 

“What’s up, man? You good?” 

“Tomorrow,” he said, waving it off. “Tomorrow, alright?” 

They slept side by side, and Cesc’s bed remained empty. 

The next day was another dizzy day, and they were in and out of dorms, drinking and dancing and forgetting existences and amounts, not measuring or calculating their drunkenness, just loving the fact that it was there in their bodies. He passed by Sergio, and they said hello, but he was too drunk to remember much else. It was a brief conversation, and it was fulfilling just because it was a conversation, not for what they spoke about or for how long it lasted, just because they had spoken. Because there was an exchange of words. Because their lips moved. An open-mouthed, sloppy kiss from ten feet apart. 

It was two in the morning, and Cesc was sitting with his roommate, and Gerard was picking his brain about something; they were both drunk out of their minds, and the evening was coming to an end. Things were winding down, so they were sitting there, sitting at a table with space between them, and Cesc leaned forward and whispered his confession. 

Gerard’s eyes widened, and he smacked Cesc’s hand, said, “Fuck you. I fucking knew it. I fucking knew it. I knew you wouldn’t have stayed in that goddamn room and gotten in trouble unless you felt something. I knew you liked one of them.”

“No,” Cesc assured him. “This is just a drunk thing.” He lowered his chin to the table. 

“It’s a drunk thing?” His eyes widened a little. 

A pause. “It’s not a drunk thing,” Cesc confessed quite sadly. 

Gerard frowned. “I know it’s not a drunk thing.” His voice was quiet. “I know.” 

Cesc drummed his fingers on the table, and a group of beautiful, laughing girls burst through the doors. One of them flipped her dark curls over one shoulder, and he recognized the girl from the room. They traipsed upstairs, heels clacking. 

“I feel too much,” he said, suddenly terrified. “I don’t even know him, and I feel too much.” 

“Cesc,” Gerard said in a patronizing tone, “You hang out with him all the time. You know him.” 

“No,” Cesc returned, appalled. “I do not. We go to smoke sometimes, but that’s with a whole group of, like, six of us. We hardly talk. We sit there and we hardly talk. He always sits to my left, and we don’t even say a word. That’s not hanging out.” 

“Well, shit, if you want meaningful conversation, go on a goddamn date.” 

“Don’t even speak that word to me,” Cesc said fiercely. He pointed a shaking finger in Gerard’s face, and Gerard easily smacked it to the table with a warning look. “Do not even talk to me about dates. I would never. I would never, okay? I wouldn’t do that kind of thing.” 

“It’s not committing murder, Cesc. It’s going out.” 

“I would rather commit murder.” 

“Good. I’m glad we’re being reasonable tonight.” 

“Go to bed,” Cesc shot back. 

“You go the fuck to bed.” 

“Can we actually both just go to bed?” 

Gerard smirked and helped Cesc to his feet, and they walked up the two flights of stairs to their room. Cesc buried his head in a pillow and plugged in his headphones and listened to music that made him feel harder. He regretted his feelings, and he regretted his confession, and he regretted the way every word of every song was a reference to Sergio. 

+

It’s a random night, and everything is over. The parties were getting boring, and everyone was running out of alcohol, so when one of Sergio’s friends texted Cesc about smoking, he didn’t feel guilty pulling only Gerard aside and ditching the rest of their friends. 

They sat on the bridge to smoke, and Gerard took the opposite end of the line near Sergio’s best friend, a handsome, cheerful kid who was actually more of an asshole than he let on. They spoke for a long time, and when they started to feel it, they lay on their backs and looked at the sky and continued to talk. Cesc watched them carefully, ignoring Sergio on his left. 

He kept smoking. He wanted to smoke enough to disappear, but it didn’t quite work like that. He was cold; he was shivering again because he never brought a goddamn jacket, and this time Sergio made another comment and he imitated the way Cesc was shivering, and Cesc laughed harder and wanted him more. He was just as comfortable as he was uncomfortable, and it was this realization that made it a thousand times harder to breathe. 

It wasn’t so much what happened -- because nothing happened -- as much as the fact that they spent time together. Every second of it was painful and wonderful, and he was sitting there staring at the side of Sergio’s face thinking he was beautiful, pinching his own arm and telling himself not to blurt out the words that were a weight on his heart. 

Gerard walked back home ten minutes early because he was starting to feel sick, having drunk far too much before. The rest of them went back to sit in the common room of the farthest dorm, and they watched TV, and they talked about random things, and Cesc wanted to sit away from Sergio to make things hurt less, but the other boys were all stretched out like the monsters they were, so he was forced to walk to the other end of the couch and sit beside the devil. 

He folded his arms over his chest and watched TV and made little sound, but the noise he did make, Sergio picked up on and responded to. Whenever he made the slightest comment that most everyone else would ignore, Sergio would answer him directly, never quite looking over, never quite starting a conversation, but always answering and always making him feel heard. It was the kind of thing that touched him even when he was drunkest. Even Blackout Cesc would have felt that. 

The other boys lived in the building, so they began to traipse upstairs, weary and mumbling their goodnights. Cesc said, “Which door is it again to my dorm?” 

Sergio was already halfway down the stairs in the opposite direction of his friends. Cesc desperately wanted to catch up to him and desperately wanted to lag behind so they didn’t have to walk back at the same time. Another exchange of words would kill him. 

“Just follow Sergio,” one of them called over his shoulder. “It’s through those doors, alright?” 

“Right,” he said and followed quickly. 

They walked side by side, and Cesc felt like he couldn’t breathe. He was shivering again, and Sergio said, “Okay, you sound really cold.” 

“I’m not. I know I sound it, but I don’t even feel it.” 

“It’s like twenty degrees out.” 

“I know,” he said. “I just don’t feel it.” 

Sergio laughed under his breath. “You’re going to have one hell of a winter, Arizona.” 

“Fuck off.” He was laughing. “I’ll probably die. I don’t even know what the hell that’s going to be like.” 

“No,” Sergio said. “You got no idea.” 

They were at his dorm, and Cesc was remembering a conversation they had earlier about Parents’ Weekend, how he’d been laughing with Sergio, how he’d said something about “my parents won’t come because it’s too far, so I’m going to steal yours for the weekend, alright?” And Sergio had responded, “You can’t. My roommate is already taking mine, I’m sorry.” And they hadn’t seen each other all weekend, but Cesc desperately wished that they had. 

“Alright,” Sergio said. “See ya.” 

“Later,” Cesc said casually and kept walking, but on his way down the stairs to his building, he whispered, very quietly to himself after first checking that no one was around, “Holy shit he’s perfect. He’s literally fucking perfect.” 

He shivered his way back to his room, and by the time he got to Gerard, he couldn’t speak he was so cold. His teeth were chattering harder than ever, and he was in a daze, either from the cold or from the conversation. It didn’t matter. 

Gerard sat up in bed. “You okay?” 

Cesc sat at the foot of the bed and he shivered. “He’s perfect,” he said, when he could finally speak through the teeth chattering. “He’s literally perfect.” 

“I know,” Gerard said with a brief laugh. “I was sitting there looking at him and I thought, damn, maybe Cesc made a good choice with this one.” 

“F-fuck you.” He wrapped one of Gerard’s extra blankets around his shoulders. “He’s literally p-perfect. I c-can’t deal. I c-cant t-take how much I l-like him. You have no idea. Normally it’s n-not like this, and it’s just.” He stopped and buried his head in the pillow. “It’s p-painful.” 

He didn’t remember what else he said, but when he, ashamed and embarrassed even to be asking, confronted Gerard about it the next morning, Ger didn’t even want to reveal the rest. He wouldn’t, not until Cesc annoyed the words out of him later when they were walking down a set of stairs to get smoothies after class. 

“Just tell me, Ger. Just please tell me what else I fucking said. I need to know. I’m so embarrassed.” He made the puppy dog eyes, knowing his best friend couldn’t resist. 

Gerard took the steps two at a time, shaking his head. “Dude. You said you loved him.” 

Cesc was silent for a moment, nodding and wanting to die. “Good,” he said. “Fuck me. Fuck me in the ass. Why do I do these things? Why is my life like this?” 

“Don’t be so goddamn dramatic.” He held the door open for Cesc and ordered their smoothies while Cesc had a mental breakdown at one of the tables. When he returned with their drinks, he set them down and played with the napkin holder, saying, “Dude, it’s okay to feel things. Like, it’s okay to like this guy.” 

“No, it’s not. He’s awful.” 

“He’s not though, and that’s probably the hardest part.” He sipped his drink. 

“I only like him for the drugs and the alcohol.” 

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, but if you only liked him for those reasons, you wouldn’t get so fucking defensive about him, first of all, and you wouldn’t enjoy those douchebag hats he wears. You like those fucking things. Why the hell would you like those douchebag hats? It’s not for the weed.” 

“I need you to go fuck yourself, and then I need you to come back from fucking yourself to murder me.” 

“Stop it, Cesc. Cut the shit. You like him.” 

“No.” Cesc rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Look, it’s only because he’s perfect. And it’s only because I can’t have him.” 

“You could have him.” 

“I could not. We’re friends. I’m bro-zoned--” 

“--Don’t ever use that word again--” 

“--And he’s too hot for me. There’s no chance in hell.” 

“How do you get anything done when you’re so busy feeling sorry for yourself?” Gerard flicked his straw wrapper across the table and Cesc flicked it back, smiling momentarily. 

His smile faded as he picked at a spot on the table. “It’s just… I don’t see it, man. I see it sometimes, in the eyes of others, when they’re interested. When they’re looking at you and you know they would fuck you. He doesn’t look at me like that.” 

“Shit,” Gerard said very seriously. “You mean he doesn’t look at you like a piece of meat?” 

“Stop,” Cesc said, pushing his smoothie forward. “I don’t even want this thing anymore. I’m going to bed.” 

“Cesc, chill, please. Please. At some point in your life… at some point in every man’s life, he must be able to find his chill. You’ve reached the point where you truly need to find yours.” 

“Ger. Please.” He tried not to let the real pain show in his eyes, but all he could think about was collapsing in his bed, embarrassed and tired and wondering why he could fuck people who didn’t matter but when someone finally mattered, the universe was anywhere but on his side. “I just want to sleep for a really long time and not think about any of this.” 

Gerard’s face softened. “I know, babe. I’m sorry. I know you really like him, but things are going to--” 

“If you say that things are going to work out, I really will kill you right here in front of all these people, and then I’ll pine for S-Sergio in prison.” 

“Can you really not even say his name? Do you really have a hard time with that? Dude, things will work out, alright? Just fucking calm down about it all.” 

“No, listen,” Cesc said earnestly. “I’m being deadass serious. He’s indifferent, Ger. He’s just indifferent, and I would rather he hate me than be indifferent. Give me anything. Literally. Give me anything else in the world, just don’t give me that blank look like I’m not even there.” 

“He looks at you like you’re there,” Gerard said, and suddenly he was the kind of serious that Cesc both wanted and feared. When he needed to be, Gerard could be brutally honest and incredibly blunt, but he normally masked this side of himself with easy humor and quick, stupid comebacks. 

“No, he doesn’t.” 

“He does,” Gerard insisted. “He just doesn’t look at you like you’re the only thing in the world.” 

“I can deal with that,” Cesc said. 

“Normally you can’t.” 

“I can with him. I don’t need exclusivity. You know that. I’m not asking for anything--” 

Gerard blew out an exasperated sigh and checked over his shoulder casually for eavesdroppers. “Look, then what do you want? Literally what do you want from him? You want him to look at you? You want him to fuck you? I mean, shit, you like him, but you don’t want to date him. You’re confusing, Cesc. You’re balls-confusing.” 

Cesc opened his mouth then shut it. It opened again. It remained a perfect “O” for half a second more and then, quietly: “I really just want him to talk to me.” 

Gerard shook his head. “Yo,” he said. “You’re fucked.” 

\+ 

It was another hazy Wednesday, and the whole group was at the bar. Sergio’s group was dancing somewhere in the center, and Cesc spotted him between heads and around shoulders, and it was the most beautiful sight in the world. He watched for a moment, almost stumbling, breath caught in his throat. If everything was that beautiful, people would never want to destroy anything but themselves. 

He took two more shots and went to find Gerard, but Gerard was making out with a blonde girl in the corner. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he still had to lean down. Cesc watched them for a moment, then shrugged and turned around, bumping into Sergio almost immediately. 

“Hey,” Sergio shouted over the music, and that was enough. They started dancing, and Cesc shouted something stupid like “This is my song” and Sergio shouted something back that was equally stupid: “Your song is good.” 

And while they moved, their bodies touched and Cesc was on fire, and Sergio was smiling and feeling the music, but Cesc was-- He couldn’t breathe. He could move easily, but it felt like everything was on fire, and he was so, so happy, and when he looked at the other boy, all he wanted to do was kiss him. His arms were around Sergio’s neck, and they were moving together, and Cesc just wanted one taste of his lips. All it would take was one kiss. Just one kiss and everything would be okay, and he would be satisfied. Fulfilled for the rest of his goddamn life. 

They danced for what seemed like ages, but they were really only two or three songs deep when Cesc mentioned something about Sergio’s roommate and he said, “Asshole made me promise to watch who he hooked up with, told me not to let him hook up with a fat chick.” 

“The fuck is wrong with him?” Cesc yelled. 

“Beats me.” He shrugged to emphasize that he was just as lost as Cesc was. “Want to see if we can find him?” 

Cesc nodded eagerly and motioned for Sergio to lead the way. And so they ducked around limbs and pushed past couples, and Cesc eyed the bar because, stumbling over his own feet, he thought Shit, I’m Too Sober For This. Anything was too sober for this. Passed out was too sober for this. 

Sergio hit the other end of the bar, and he turned around. “Not here. Must have left already.” 

He was just turning to go off again when Cesc tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him back. His mind was racing with nothingness, just color and lights and the song that was blasting. “I don’t know where my friends are. I think they all left. I’m going to stay with you.” 

Cesc wasn’t okay enough -- wasn’t sober enough-- to remember the look in Sergio’s eyes when he said that, but he remembered the words, the quick way he leaned forward and said, “Alright, do you want to head back now?” 

And it wasn’t that he expected sex or a kiss or anything. It was just the natural progression of things on a normal night, on a dizzy night. He would dance with someone at the bar, and they would hook up, and then they would go back somewhere to fuck. That was just how it happened. Things escalated, they moved forward. They didn’t just sit and wait there. 

So they took an Uber back and sloppy Cesc offered to pay a few times, but Sergio brushed it off and sat in the front seat and carried on a lovely, drunk conversation with the driver while Cesc interjected loudly, being cheerful and adorable, and the driver knew it and Cesc knew it, but Sergio probably had no clue. 

He still responded, as he always did, to Cesc’s every comment, never leaving him hanging, and Cesc had this theory that it was about squad loyalty. You don’t leave someone unanswered just like you don’t abandon your friend in a sticky situation. It was one and the same. The things that kid would do for his friends-- that’s why they all looked to him as a leader, that’s why they kept the alcohol in his room and pre-gamed in his room and talked about themselves like they were his property, because he cast some spell on everyone he’d protect. Ironically, they would die for him just to feel his protection. 

They walked to Sergio’s dorm, and they sat on the couch in the common room, and Sergio said, “My roommate is hooking up with someone in our room.” He threw his head back and flicked on the TV, groaning quietly when the right channel didn’t pop up right away. “I just want to watch some fucking Cops. Not the food network.” 

“Who the fuck doesn’t like the Food Network? Why you being a bitch about the Food Network?” 

Sergio laughed a little under his breath, found the right channel. They spoke a little during the program, commenting and laughing, and Sergio talked about how one of his cousins was murdered by the drug cartel, how he’d they’d found him a decapitated corpse, and Cesc thought it was the coolest thing in the world, not that the poor kid got his head chopped off, but because Sergio was telling the story and it was interesting and exciting and violent. 

Sergio went upstairs later, and just before he did, Cesc pathetically stood with him. He felt his heart beat faster, but the drunkenness was numbing his senses, convincing him to speak words he should have swallowed. 

“Does this mean I have to go back to my room?” 

“Yes,” Sergio told him, turning away. It wasn’t brutal, just exhausted. 

So Cesc shrugged, muttered “fine” like he just wasn’t ready to go to bed. It wasn’t because he was in love; he was just too awake to shut his eyes. He pulled his shirt sleeves over his hands and shivered his way back, but halfway there, after first mentally acknowledging just how drunk he was-- more fucked up than usual, dizzy-walking and stumbling-- he pulled out his phone and proceeded to send the worst text of his life: 

“Yo you should have just fucked me at the beginning of the year.” 

He stopped in the middle of the walkway. There was a strange feeling under the numbness, like the numbness was a drunk skin; if he peeled it away, if he even picked at it slightly, the real fear would seep in, and his limbs would shake, not from the cold but from the fear of having exposed everything to the last person in the world who should know it. 

The playful reply: “Agressive,, I’m not about that pls I don’t just run around giving ppl the d” 

They were too drunk to be thinking let alone communicating, but Cesc was feeling his way in the dark, guided by emotion and liquor not thought. “Be real,” he typed back. “We’re hoes.” 

“Not ya boy” was the rapid reply. “I burn bridges with everyone I hook up with not tryna do that here” 

“You don’t have to burn bridges with everyone you fuck.” He muttered the words as he typed, not thinking, not feeling the chill of the air, only the intense excitement of the communication. In that moment, Sergio was a person, not a concept. He was realer in those words than he had been as they sat side by side watching TV. 

He kept typing: “But you’re right.” He was backpedaling to minimize the damage. “I’d rather be your friend if fucking means saying bye.” 

He watched the trio of dots appear at the bottom of the screen, holding his breath. He walked very slowly towards his building, one step at a time, unwilling to go back until the conversation was finished and his blood was no longer ice. 

“I’m just not tryna fuck anyone right rn too much complicated shit involved.” 

“Nah you make sense I want to be friends with u it makes more sense than hooking up” 

He bit his lip as hard as he could manage. The feeling hadn’t kicked in yet, at least not completely, but there was a pit in his stomach he knew he was about to fall into. He just wanted to disappear, not feel. More than anything, he just wanted to disappear. 

His phone buzzed again. “Hey but hooking up probably isn’t out of the picture, I just need to get my shit together first” 

He blinked. Shivered. Put his phone in his pocket and walked to his room. 

“What happened?” Gerard was sitting up in bed. 

“Nothing,” he said, collapsing onto his pillow. “Nothing happened. Nothing. We went back to the common room and watched TV.” He rubbed his hands together and disappeared under the blankets, numb and afraid and numb. 

“That’s it?” 

“And then I sent the most embarrassing texts of my life, and I want to die.” 

Gerard’s eyes widened, and he stuck his hand out. “Dude, hand it over.” 

Cesc threw his phone and buried his head under the pillow. “Don’t hand it back to me. I’m sleeping.” 

He listened to Gerard’s breathing, heard the click of the phone shutting off when he finished reading the conversation in its entirety. Cesc shut his eyes and waited for the reaction. Too drunk to comprehend, too lost in feeling to hurt, too confused to distinguish between numbness and pain. 

Gerard let out a little breath. “That’s gonna hurt like a bitch in the morning.” 

+

He woke up to a blistering hangover. It took a second for everything to set in, and then his head was spinning and he groaned into his arm. “No,” he said to himself. “No, no, no, no. I can’t leave this room.” 

Gerard was already folding laundry in the corner of the room, awkward and lovable trying to maneuver in a space too small for his body. “Advil on the dresser. Water bottle next to it. Take three and then talk to me.” 

“I’ll take the whole bottle and die and then talk to you.” 

“Cesc, shut the fuck up.” 

He didn’t have the energy to roll his eyes, so he half-heartedly stuck up his middle finger and swiped at the Advil bottle, swallowing four at the same time. He sat there for a moment, feeling the pills at the back of his throat, swallowing twice more to make them go down all the way, and that’s when the pain came with the memory. 

“Fuck,” he breathed. “I really fucked up. I really, really fucked up bad, Ger.” 

The other boy slid the laundry basket across the room and picked up his backpack. “I washed your gym stuff. We can talk about that drunk texting later, but right now I have class, alright?” 

“Fuck. Class? On a Saturday?” 

“Dude,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a Thursday. Get your shit together.” 

He shut his eyes when the door closed behind Gerard, and he thought about every word of the conversation. He found his phone and read the conversation again. He plugged in his headphones and listened to sad music and re-learned Sergio’s face via an old hilarious video of Sergio trying to walk in a straight line when he was cross-faded on a Tuesday, and he died a thousand times with every thought, every frame, every half-dead daydream. 

He finally forced himself out of bed and went to class, taking notes next to the girl whose friend had hooked up with Sergio at the beginning of the year. He stared at her hands for a very long time; they were long and slender. She was sweet, and her friend was emotional. Birdlike and skinny. Cesc squinted, trying to imagine them together. His professor called on him to answer, and he shook his head blankly before reading the first word on his paper. 

The next few days were a daze because he didn’t go out Thursday, and it was strange having a sober night so close to the weekend. He stayed in the library until three in the morning, staring at his paper instead of studying. He failed his two quizzes the next day, saw Gerard in his third class. They exchanged glances across the room, and when they went to dinner right after, Cesc felt a tug on his shirt sleeve. 

“He’s here.” 

“What? Who is?” He picked apart his Caesar salad wrap. 

“Sergio. With Iker.” 

Cesc swallowed hard. “Great. I’m too sober for this.” 

“You’re always too sober for everything.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

“Good,” Ger said, nodding. “You’re a budding alcoholic, you know that?” 

Cesc gave the other boy an annoyed look over his iced tea and tried to discreetly look around. He was still twisting his neck to watch the register when Leo and Antonella came to sit with them. They chatted about their Psych papers until Cesc caught sight of Sergio and Iker, and his breath caught in his throat. He stopped talking, ran his fingers through his hair. Licked his lips. 

He saw Iker look over at their table and then mutter something to Sergio. Cesc was almost shaking. He looked over at Iker just as Iker looked away; he half-smiled awkwardly just in case either of them looked over again. 

“Oh my god,” he said under his breath. 

Gerard had a smile plastered to his face. “You’ve got ten seconds,” he said, holding it. 

“Okay.” 

They all waited. Leo and Antonella smiled pleasantly. 

Gerard hesitated. “Okay.” 

Cesc swore intensely under his breath. “The fuck,” he said. 

“I think he got a haircut.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Did he? Do you like it?” 

“I’m not talking to you anymore, and I’m leaving.” 

Gerard gathered his things, moaning, “That’s rude. Leo and Anto just got here. We’re being rude by leaving. Can’t you just find your chill for two seconds?” 

“Fuck off. Grab napkins and finish your dinner in the room.” 

They walked in silence towards the napkin dispenser, in silence towards the door, continued in silence until halfway back to their building, and then Cesc turned to Gerard and said, very quietly, “He did get a haircut.” 

When they got to their dorm, Cesc walked calmly to the bathroom and puked up every bit of his dinner. 

+

Many nights passed, and Gerard and Cesc went to smoke with Sergio’s crowd almost all of them. At the end of the evening, when the parties were ending and the campus was quieting down, Cesc would get a text from one of Sergio’s sweet albeit less attractive friends, and he would pull Gerard aside, and they would traipse over to Sergio’s dorm. 

The walk down to their smoking bridge in the woods was a pilgrimage of epic proportions. The stumble down the steep hill, the leaves scattered on the ground, the muttered curse words against the cold. The way they all hopped over the wooden fence and how someone always turned to help the shorter ones make it. It was poetry in action, so familiar to Cesc’s drunk self he could sleepwalk there. 

When they finally made it to the bridge, something switched on in Cesc’s heart, and he walked over to his spot next to Sergio. Sitting beside him was a prayer, and when their fingers touched passing the lighter, a prayer fulfilled. 

He burned his finger. “Fuck.” 

“It’s okay,” Sergio said. “Me too.” 

Cesc rubbed the burn, hoping it would leave a mark in the morning. Then, even when the stinging subsided, he could feel it there and know Sergio had a matching red spot on his thumb right where the flame had kissed them both. 

The wind was blowing harder when it came back around, and it wouldn’t stay lit. “Can you--? I keep burning my thumb.” 

“Yeah, I got you.” Then, “Now I’m going to burn my thumb.”

Cesc grabbed it back. “Sorry,” he said quickly. He couldn’t explain it, not in so many words, but no part of Sergio could be hurt or Cesc would die within himself. 

“Nah,” he said, in his voice that made everything better, “You’re all good.” 

And later, Cesc collapsed into bed and looked across the room at Gerard. His cheeks felt very cold, and his thumb was stinging. “No one has ever offered to burn for me,” he said. 

+

It was shortly thereafter that Cesc received an email from his academic advisor about needing to meet urgently. Hungover on a Thursday morning, he rolled out of bed twenty minutes before the meeting, brushed his hair over, washed his face, after a minute of deep thought in front of the mirror, decided to hop in the shower to wash beer out of his hair. He didn’t shave. 

He made it there just in time and fell into the armchair across from the professor’s desk with a sloppy smile. “Sorry I was running late,” he said. 

“No problem, Cesc. I just wanted to talk to you about attendance and grades. We’re having a bit of a problem here, see, your professors--” 

And the rest was a blur because he felt like falling into himself. Things were more fucked up than he thought, and he was more scared than he thought possible. His parents wanted to contact the dean, had contacted his advisor behind his back, and were sending him cryptic texts asking about the meeting that started the whole thing. 

He went to his class an hour after the meeting and volunteered to speak three times instead of just texting under the table like he normally did. He was going to turn shit around. The motivation lasted momentarily. 

Later, he was telling Gerard about the meeting and the mess, and his friend brushed a hand across his eyes exhaustedly. “Look, it’s fucked up that your parents talked to your advisor behind your back because that’s just-- I mean, that’s shit, that’s really shit. It makes you look like you can’t handle things. But you do need a reality check. Like, you have to go to class, man.” 

“No,” he said with a sigh. “I know that. I know. I just feel like I worked my ass off in high school and now I’m here, and I love it here, but what am I working towards now? Like, I’m working towards death.” 

“A job. Don’t be dramatic.” 

“Good. Work and death.” He shoved his notebook to one side of the bed. “Don’t you ever just want to go out and have fun and never stop?” 

“Yeah, course, but I’m not sixteen anymore.” 

“You’re eighteen. Not much has changed.” 

“Everything has changed. There’s a world of difference.” 

Cesc rolled his eyes, and Gerard sighed, and they knew they were never going to agree because too much separated them in that regard. Of course Cesc knew that school was first, school was number one in his life, but having friends meant so much more, and when he was barely hanging on by a thread because he hated what he was studying, it was so much easier to give in and drink more. 

Gerard scratched away at a math problem. “To make you happy, I’ll go out next Bar Night, but that’s it. You know I can’t go out as much as you. I’m dumb as shit, Cesc. I gotta study. You can glide by--” 

“I’m not gliding by, man. I’m falling short in every way.” 

Gerard shot him a rude look. “You’re passing though. Like the bare minimum but you’re passing. If I acted the way you do, I would straight up get kicked out of this place. Shut up, do your work, and we’ll go out Wednesday, okay?” 

So it became the huge reward at the end of a long, hard neverending stream of days. He worked when he saw Gerard, and he reduced the number of days he drank. He ran hard and long at the gym, and when the workout music blared in his ears, all he could dream about was the neon lights and a pair of lips he’d never kissed. 

When Wednesday came around, he almost didn’t go. Overwhelmed with work and feeling discouraged about the Sergio Situation, he just felt like curling into a ball and drinking NyQuil until sleep was finally a safe place; lately Sergio had plagued his dreams. But because Gerard was going and because his enthusiasm was contagious, Cesc got himself up out of bed, washed his face, changed, and drank until he was unsteady enough to be seen in public. 

And right away it was chaos because they saw Sergio again, and he was beautiful, dancing, beautiful. All Cesc could think was that this boy was poetry he could finally understand. A group of words in front of his eyes that had no shape or sound, just a feeling he could associate with neither happiness nor sadness, just feeling in its purest form. 

But quickly, one of Sergio’s friends pulled him aside and said, “You want to go to the gas station across the street and buy some cigars?” 

Cesc shrugged because, why not, maybe Sergio would be there, and he led them out the door, and sure enough, when he looked over his shoulder, there was Sergio. Striding. Calm and powerful and happy. 

They smoked and laughed, and it was a beautiful blur. Finally the others had departed, and it was just Sergio and his roommate and Cesc. And then there was this moment-- this moment that he couldn’t even describe; for once he wished he was more sober, sober enough to remember every single detail. 

Cesc held up the cigar and complained, “You made this taste bad with your mouth.” 

And Sergio laughed and pretended to be offended and said, “You think my mouth is disgusting?” 

And his roommate said, “Why don’t you make out for five seconds and see if his mouth is really disgusting?” 

Things were not just blurry. They were one happy blur, and he had never felt something like it before. Not a surprise, not a shock, not tremors running through his body. Just a dull, comfortable feeling like laying in bed after the most satisfying daydream. They kissed. 

His roommate was counting in the background. “One….Two… Three...Three Point Five…. Four… Four Point Five… Five...Five Point Five…. Oh!... Six.” He doubled over, laughing as they broke apart, both smiling. 

Cesc didn’t remember where he went after that, but he ran into Sergio’s temperamental best friend sitting near the gas station bathroom, still smoking. “I need to use the bathroom,” he said in his whiny voice. 

“Okay,” Cesc said, “Then why don’t we go get the bathroom key?” 

“No,” he said back sourly, just as Sergio came to stand behind Cesc. “Then it’s going to take forever because you and Sergio are going to fuck in the bathroom.” 

Cesc snorted. “Me and Sergio are not going to fuck in the bathroom of a gas station.” But internally he was thinking, I would. 

They walked back over to the bar, bringing Sergio’s still-whining best friend with them, and then the night seemed like it was starting all over again because they were singing Sweet Caroline with their arms around each other, shouting it more than singing, dying more than they were living. Every time Sergio’s arm brushed against his, Cesc couldn’t contain his smile. He glanced at Gerard over his shoulder, and they were both grinning ear-to-ear, and it was such a wonderful feeling, knowing that in that moment he had the boy he wanted more than anything and he had a friend that supported this desire. Everything was perfect; he should have known it couldn’t last forever. 

But they went back to campus after that, and they went to go smoke, and things remained perfect for a little while longer, and then Sergio seemed to withdraw inside himself again, and Cesc cut out for bed-- not sad, not perfect-- happy, somewhere in the middle, still feeling the night and maybe the spins just a little. 

It was a beautiful night for collapsing on the bed and thinking, running his fingers over his lips and knowing they were pure for the first time in their life, knowing that after touching the other boy -- the boy in question being neither pure nor clean-- they were changed forever. Not in shape and not in feeling, but changed in some deeper way. There was something beneath the lips that connected body and mind and soul. Because when Sergio had kissed Cesc, he had kissed him because he wanted to kiss him, and Cesc had felt his desire running through the kiss, and it was the most complete moment of his existence. 

+

He smiled through the next day, smiling during class and smiling during meals, smiling when Gerard brought up Sergio and smiling when he thought about the other boy’s lips. He smiled so much he began to hate his own smile. He smiled so hard his cheeks were hurting. Smiling for any other reason felt mechanical and faked. 

On Friday he felt foolish for smiling the day before, and on Saturday he felt like things were hopeless. They had seen each other in passing, but Sergio was always with his best friends and didn’t seem to have time even for a hello. The problem with contact is that one side always feels it harder. 

Maybe Cesc was too in love with a boy he knew too little about. Maybe Sergio was feeling something on the other side, but on the other side of feeling is always confusion; without communication, they were always on each other’s other side. Never in the same place at the same time. Their timing was always, always off. 

Gerard pulled out Cesc’s headphones. “Why are you laying on the bed doing nothing?” 

“I’m not doing nothing. I’m thinking about all the studying I should be doing.” 

“Good. I have a story from the other night.” 

Cesc instantly perked up. He paused his music, telling Gerard, “I don’t pause Bieber for just anyone.” 

“Understood.” He paused, collected his thoughts, set the scene with the suspense. “So you know on Wednesday night when we were all standing and waiting for Ubers?” 

“Yeah,” Cesc said, thinking about Sergio on the street corner with his two best friends-- the one Cesc understood and the one Cesc was jealous of. 

“I went up to Sergio and I asked him if he had his Uber all ordered, and he said, yeah, he was waiting for one. And then I said, ‘Do you have room for anyone?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, but we’re saving the last seat.’ And I asked who he was saving it for, and he goes… ‘Cesc, of course.’” 

Cesc’s face split into another foolish smile, and his fist curled around the pillow cover. “Jesus,” he said quietly. Something violent was going on within his heart. 

The violence remained. The war raged on. He kept telling himself to stop thinking about Sergio so much, but with every step to every class, he played out a new fantasy in his mind. Every time he entered a building and he saw that precise shade of brown on someone’s head, his heart skipped a beat. It was obsessive, all-consuming emotion; he dared not call it love, but the word danced on his tongue, only striking fully when he wasn’t sober enough to hold back. 

Finals were approaching when more complete moments occurred. Cesc and his friends had this plan. They agreed to hold themselves back because, jesus, their grades. They had final grades to worry about. It wasn’t just a few failed quizzes anymore, a midterm they forgot to study for; this time it was real. It was concrete. It was a final failing grade staring them down at the end of their first semester. 

So they all quietly agreed to tone down the partying because finals were approaching, and they spent the days locked in the library, sleeping in the common room with their head on a pile of books, making stacks of flashcards so high on adderall they ground pencils down to the size of a fingernail. 

But then the Hockey Formal happened. They’d known about it for weeks: the hockey team puts on a formal, it opens up to the general public after the first half hour, easy drinks, good music. Cesc had initially refused to go, writing it off as some fucked up sports function that he wanted nothing to do with. But then, the evening of-- Sunday before the first finals started Wednesday, god it was the worst idea-- one of Sergio’s nicer friends texted asking if Cesc and his friends were planning on going. (“The whole squad?” he’d asked in the text, as if he didn’t want Cesc thinking this was about him at all.) 

Then it was set in stone and he raced around the room trying to find an outfit to wear. His giant stack of flashcards sat lonely and pathetic on the ground; he tried not to feel too guilty for going out instead of studying, consoling himself with the memory of Sergio’s lips, the smile he had worn for hours after, the feeling that there was specific desire-- that he, of all people, was wanted by the person he had chosen, from all others. 

A polite inquiry about attendance could send him into panic mode. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t healthy; all his friends shook their heads, telling him it wasn’t right to care this much. “It’s just not good for you,” they would say, and he heard them. He really, really did hear them, but it wasn’t like he could shut things off. 

“If I could turn it off, I would,” he told Gerard, a few drinks in. “If I could just tell myself not to feel this, I would. It’s bullshit when people say feelings are nothing to be ashamed of.” 

“Shut it,” Gerard warned gently. “Don’t have a loose tongue tonight, alright?” 

“Right,” Cesc replied miserably, grabbing another beer. Then, offhand like it didn’t matter, “I made a mistake. I got attached.” 

Gerard leaned very close so no one else would hear. In the same offhand tone: “Feelings aren’t mistakes. Mistakes are things you can control-- you know it’s wrong and you do it anyway, or you see that it’s wrong and it’s too late to save yourself. Feelings aren’t mistakes.” 

“What, you think you can’t control feelings?”

“Haven’t you tried?” 

They shared a look, and Gerard walked away. The rest of the night was like that, shared looks and forced silences. They went to the Formal at the bar, and Cesc saw all Sergio’s friends but no Sergio, and he felt this horrible longing in his chest. In his mind, in his body, with everything in between and beyond -- everything was occupied and obsessed with thoughts of Sergio. He just needed to see the other boy, and the fire within him would be calmed -- momentarily, but it would be progress. He’d come to the realization that all he could do was hold his feelings at bay. He couldn’t wipe them out, and he couldn’t tame himself with forgetfulness; all he could do was train himself to pretend. 

There was just one moment, out of all the chaos, that made the chaos worthwhile. Sergio was somewhere behind him, and one of his friends slapped Cesc on the arm. “Sergio wants to dance with you tonight,” he teased, waggling his eyebrows. 

Cesc turned. “Toni says you want to dance with me. Is that true?” 

Sergio didn’t even smirk. “Nah, it’s too early for that.” 

Wounded but drunk enough to be able to handle it, Cesc made an irritated expression. “What, you need to get drunker?” 

“What?” Sergio looked bewildered, and Cesc turned away. 

It was a hurricane Sunday like most Wednesdays were natural disasters. He was that level of fucked up but still good-fucked up and not yet bad-fucked up. He lost Sergio in the sound and the movement. 

One of Sergio’s best friends, adorable and small and hyperactive, tugged on Cesc’s arm. “Do you want to come across the street and buy me a cigar?” 

Cesc blew out a sigh. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.” 

Almost immediately, Isco threw himself to the ground. His legs hugged the curb in front of the gas station. “Can you go inside and buy it for me? I’m gonna vomit.” 

“What?” 

“I’m gonna vomit,” he said. Everything was still for a moment, and then he lurched forward. 

Cesc just stood there shifting for a moment. “Fuck.” He scratched his forehead. “Do you want me to go buy them still or--?” 

Isco waved it off. “Babe… babe, I’m fine. Maybe don’t get them because I’m just gonna puke more.” 

“Good.” Cesc sat next to him and put an arm around the other boy’s shoulder. “I’m going to get us a ride home, alright? And then you’re going straight to bed.” 

“First to vomit. Then to bed.” 

“That’s right. First vomit, then bed.” 

The Uber came quickly and, by that time, one of Isco’s friends had happened over to the gas station to buy his own cigars and lottery tickets, and he agreed to help them home. So they grabbed a plastic bag and Isco’s friend sat in the front seat distracting the driver while Cesc sat in the back holding the bag under Isco’s mouth and watching as the boy vomited up tequila shots and cheap beer. 

“Maybe the last two or three shots were a mistake,” he admitted as they pulled up in front of Cesc’s dorm. “I mean… this maybe isn’t good…” He trailed off, his mouth returning to the bag. 

Cesc’s mouth tightened into a thin, straight line. “Alright, thanks for the ride, man.” He clapped the driver on the shoulder and hopped out, walking around the car to guide Isco onto the first floor. 

As Isco dragged the huge recycling bin into Cesc and Gerard’s room, Cesc texted Gerard, trying to keep his cool. “This sucks. All I wanted was to hang out with Sergio tonight, and I’m fucking helping Isco puke. I don’t mind, but like it sucks a lot.” 

Gerard’s drunk but coherent response: “I know it sucks and I’m sorry. I know how bad you wanted to hang out with him tonight.” 

“Talk to him for me?” It was drunk-desperate, not even normal Cesc desperate. 

“Sure thing.” Then, a few minutes later: “I told him you left to help Isco, and he looked really sad. Like, he wants it forreal.” 

“Okay,” he sent back, disappointment coursing through his veins. Good, he wanted it. Being Wanted was progress, but he was frustrated at the small steps and the mis-timed attempts at turning things around. He just wanted the timing to be right for once. Sick of feeling pathetic and sad about a boy, he went into the bathroom to scrub his hands clean. 

It wasn’t long before the rest of the squad was strolling down the hallway: Sergio with a chill walk-- he was always so calm, so confident, so composed; even when he was angry, it sounded like he was joking the whole time. And the rest of them trailed behind him like dejected soldiers. The night was clear on their faces; Wide eyes, sluggish walks, arms heavy at their sides. 

“Where is he?” Sergio asked, blowing past Cesc. 

“The room. The bed.” He gestured numbly. “He’s puking in the recycle bin.” 

Cesc waited while Sergio and Toni attempted to lift Isco and walk him down the hallway while Iker waved his hands around, saying, “Stop it. Can you not be assholes about this? Clearly he should just sleep here. He’s going to die on the way back if we try and walk him all the way back to his dorm.” 

“Fine. Jesus. Fine. We’re just leaving him here then?” Toni looked exasperated. 

“Yeah,” Cesc cut in. He nodded to the blanket folded on the end of the bed. “He can sleep in my bed. I can just wash the puke out of my shit. I really don’t care.” 

“Thanks, man,” Sergio said quietly. 

It was a blur after that, and looking back on it, Cesc would want to remember. He’d be pissed off at himself for not being more coherent in the moment, for not tracking every breath, every second, for not watching every word that escaped his lips. Later, he would want to think about it a million times over in an attempt to understand the other boy’s feelings, but he’d be left with Memory, Memory, a foggy blur, Memory, Feeling. In the end, it was mostly down to feeling. But with that boy, it was always down to feeling. 

They ended up watching a movie in Sergio’s bed, just Cesc and Sergio. Very close, side by side, Cesc’s shoulder overlapping with Sergio’s chest. Land Before Time. 

“My favorite movie,” Sergio said quietly. “You have no idea how sad this is.” 

“I’ve seen it before. I used to watch this shit all the time. The fucking dinosaurs were my shit, you got no idea. I mean, I could name every single dinosaur in every book about dinosaurs. Budding paleontologist at eight years old.” 

“This is the saddest movie,” he said again, as they moved closer. Almost in tears, he said, “It reminds me of my family. It’s pretty fucked up. It was the last movie I ever saw with my grandpa before he died.” 

Cesc’s phone was buzzing and he checked it briefly. From Sergio’s roommate. “Are you going to hook up or what?” “Can you answer?” “Cesc seriously” “Cesc” “Cesc come on” “Come onnnnn” 

“Shit,” Cesc said, ignoring the texts. “The last--” 

They started making out, and then Sergio was on top of him, and it was the greatest feeling, the most complete emotion, the clearest he’d ever been in his life. He was smiling through the kisses, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, and he wasn’t afraid. This was the only boy Cesc wanted to kiss, the only boy who wouldn’t be a mistake, the only boy who made Cesc feel like his insides were on fire. He was painful to think about, beautiful to look at, a dream to kiss, and a nightmare to love when that feeling was not returned. 

Then there was a sound at the door, and Cesc was back to being a blurry mess. They straightened themselves out in time for Sergio’s roommates to punch in the code. They casually said hello, and Cesc was sitting there, bewildered without the weight of Sergio’s lips on his own. He didn’t like that empty feeling, but what he liked even less was going back to the state of longing. He was so briefly fulfilled. 

But one of the Roommates was complaining about being starving, so they all agreed they would go find food, and Cesc trailed behind, still confused but driven by the liquor that made him brave enough to be human in Sergio’s presence. 

“It’s a roommate trip,” one of the declared cheerfully. “Roommates and Cesc.” 

Sergio walked with them, only speaking when necessary. It was a trait that Cesc couldn’t wrap his head around. He didn’t ramble, he didn’t rant, he didn’t say things unless he wanted to say them. He didn’t throw himself around like the world was disposable. He threw himself around with purpose. And yet you could look at Sergio and say Reckless Boy, Loud Boy, There’s Something Bad About You. But a goodness too, one that Cesc hadn’t seen until perhaps too late in the game. Because that’s what it had become after awhile-- a game. Before it was a game too, but that was child’s play, and the stakes weren’t high. Now with friendship in the picture, now when he was on his back and Sergio was above him, now that Cesc had touched God in that kiss-- now the stakes were very, very high. And if he fell now, he’d fall and break something within himself that would take a very long time to fix. 

If they had just hooked up at the beginning of the school year, things would have been simpler. They wouldn’t have become friends. Sergio would have regretted it in the morning, maybe. Maybe they would have hooked up a few more times. Maybe. Maybe they would have spoken, maybe they would have become something; maybe they would have consumed themselves into nothing. At least then they would be Finished Nothing instead of an ongoing nothing, a nothing with a confused substance. It was the uncertainty and the longing that Cesc couldn’t handle. 

But he wasn’t thinking about anything then, not in that moment when Sergio was walking near him and everything seemed bright and bold and beautiful. They piled into the car, and Roommate Number One swerved out of the parking lot. He’d probably been drinking, but Cesc didn’t think; he wasn’t thinking at all, just quietly speaking God Only Knows What to Roommate Number Two while Sergio and Roommate One fiddled with the radio in the front. 

After fifteen minutes or so, they pulled into a tiny space between two beat up cars in front of a twenty-four hour diner. The whole place was an old train car, furnished with drapes and wallpaper and old photographs on the wall. 

They found a booth: Cesc and Sergio on one side, Roommates One and Two on the other. The waitress came by. Cesc fiddled with his phone and spoke things without thinking. He didn’t remember half the shit that fell out of his mouth until he looked at the pictures and videos on his phone the next afternoon and forced himself to remember. 

He was trying to get a video of the diner, but the majority of the video was just Sergio’s face. He did a thing with his hands, and Cesc said, “Alright, fuck you,” for no reason at all, just because Sergio looked really adorable and fuck him for looking adorable and making things painfully bright and real. Sergio stuck up his middle finger, and Cesc said, “Fuck you” once more for good measure. 

Don’t do this to me, he wanted to say. Don’t talk like that or look like that. Don’t be like that. But they were drunk thoughts, and they would have been drunker words, once fully formed, focused, directed. That’s why you don’t talk to people you love in secret. When you store that affection somewhere deep inside your soul, don’t touch them; don’t speak; do anything you can to defend yourself. Lock yourself in a goddamn room. Just don’t love too loudly. 

Roommate Number Two helped Cesc work with the menu because he was too fucked up to read quickly. He ended up just picking off everyone else’s plates, stuffing potatoes into his mouth until he felt like puking. By the time they were back in the car and driving back to campus, he really felt like puking, but he forced himself to keep it down, shutting his eyes a few times and resting his head against the back of the seat. 

Sergio said something like, “Jesus. I could drive better than this.” 

“I could drive better than this,” Cesc said belligerently. 

“No,” Roommate Number One said, patting his hands. “No, Cesc.” 

They got back to the room, and Cesc looked out the window, and he was so happy he couldn’t put it into words. Not out loud, not in his own mind; he couldn’t even organize his feelings. It was torture, it was bliss. 

He checked the back of his phone where his swipe for the dorm normally was. “I left my swipe,” he said. “Lost it, I mean. I got no idea where it is. Can I sleep on the floor?” 

“Yeah, course,” Sergio said, climbing onto the top bunk. 

“Why don’t you just stay in Sergio’s bed?” Roommate Number One said, waggling his eyebrows from across the room. 

“Yeah,” Sergio said. “Just stay in my bed.” 

He crawled onto the top bunk. “Inside or outside?” 

“Oh, inside,” he said right away. Cesc remembered a conversation of theirs, back when they were nothing-- even less of a nothing than this was-- and Sergio had been talking about not liking it when people stayed over, that it was fine until he woke up in the morning and he just wanted his own bed and his own space. Cesc remembered, and he didn’t move to the floor. It would have been strange to switch it up then, and he was too tired and too drunk to care about that conversation from months before. 

They kissed again. It was poetry, and Sergio whispered, “My roommates are in here” when it got to be too much, too loud, too much. 

Cesc whispered back, “Oh god, I’m sorry. I forgot.” 

And later, when Cesc was trying to remember more, he wouldn’t be able to fully pull up an image of Sergio’s expression after he spoke, but he remembered Sergio rolling over and being very close to Cesc when they fell asleep. And in those quiet moments before sleep, when he was staring out the window at the night sky, there was nothing better than the silence and the feel and the sheer weight of knowing something had happened that he would smile about in the morning. 

+

But when it was morning, the covers were falling off, and he sat up several times hoping Sergio would hear him moving and also wake up. He wanted to say thank you in person, just to make sure Sergio didn’t think things were going to be weird or awkward between them. He just wanted to say, “Thanks for letting me stay, but I have to go now.” That’s all. That’s all he needed. He didn’t need a morning kiss or something sweet to make him smile harder; all he needed was to make sure this wasn’t the last of them. He would settle for friendship any day, but he couldn’t lose the boy completely, especially not after a night like that. Not after the golden nights. 

He laid back down, and he looked at Sergio’s back, and it was the hottest back he’d ever seen in his goddamn life. That’s the most honest way of putting it. He was wearing just boxers, and the covers were pulled down so far he could see the other boy’s entire body. He wanted it. He wanted it badly. But even wanting it, he was content. He had never been both hungry and satisfied in the same breath. He wanted more kisses; whenever they weren’t together, he wanted more. More talking, more kissing, more anything. Just more contact. But the problem-- one side always feels it harder. And Cesc was most definitely feeling it harder. 

There was one last moment that, looking back on the entire experience, he would treasure. He was laying in bed with his face to the ceiling, reliving the night before and trying not to be afraid for what would come next, when Sergio moved, still sleeping, closer to Cesc. In one swift movement, he wrapped his arms around Cesc and bundled him up close to his chest. Cesc smiled and shifted so his face was pressed against Sergio. 

It was brief. Sergio shifted away almost as quickly, but Cesc couldn’t contain the feeling. It was spilling over. He couldn’t keep it at bay any longer. He didn’t believe in loving people unless they loved him back; unrequited just wasn’t something that he did. That was a style he couldn’t fuck with-- the whole tragic, loving from afar type of bullshit. No. He wanted people, and they wanted him back. That was the way it worked. 

But with this boy, with those eyes and with the way he kissed-- Cesc would love him if the other boy spat in his face and stabbed him in the back. It was that kind of love, pathetic and all-consuming. 

He finally left, when Sergio’s roommate woke up and they exchanged bleary-eyed half-smiles. Cesc climbed off the bed and whispered, “I should go.” He wanted Sergio to wake up, and he wanted him to remain sleeping; he was perfect with his eyes closed and his quiet breathing. He was perfect when he was shouting and dancing too, but that was a different kind of perfect-- a perfection that belonged to the real world where boys like that rejected boys like Cesc. This sleeping Perfect was the dream kind. Cesc was right where he belonged. 

On the way back to his dorm, mist was falling from the sky. He was dressed in black, and the little drops of water kept hitting his cheeks, and they washed down his face like tears. 

The first battle of the morning was waking up; the second, the walk back to his dorm; the third, his half-fight with Gerard. When he opened the door, memories from the night before-- non-Sergio memories, that is-- came flooding back: carrying Isco back, leaving him in the room to sleep, not explaining everything to Gerard. When he saw the look on his friend’s face, he immediately locked into terribly sorry, so sorry, humbled Apology mode. 

“I’m the worst person in the whole world,” he said. “I totally forgot I left Isco in here.” 

“It’s okay,” Gerard said. “His friends came to get him a few hours ago.” He was folding his laundry. 

“Ger,” Cesc began. He waited. “Ger, please, that was really shitty of me.” 

“It was shitty of you. I got finals to study for. I got shit to do. I went out, and I come back to some kid puking in my trash can.” He looked right at Cesc. “You know, before when you were drunkenly talking to me, you said something about how I was too nice to you, and you always worried that you took advantage, and you never wanted me to think you were taking advantage of my kindness or my space or whatever.” 

“Yeah, and--” 

“Last night was the first time I actually thought that about you.” 

Cesc looked at him for a long time. Panicking, he shook his head slowly. “Ger, I really. I really thought I was helping him, and I got distracted, and that was so shitty of me, and I’m so sorry. I know that doesn’t make up for it, but seriously. Seriously I didn’t mean to do this to you.” 

Gerard put the last of his clothes in the closet. “Did you at least hook up with him?” 

“Maybe a little.” 

A slow smile spread over the other boy’s features. “Tell me about it over breakfast.” 

“Are you serious? You’re not mad anymore?” 

“Breakfast,” Gerard said. “I’ll think of a way to get back at you later.” 

At the dining hall with the long wooden tables and the grand ceilings, Cesc filled his bowl with fruit and cereal and sat across from Gerard, unable to sit still until Gerard prompted him to begin his story. He summarized the night, smiling and then trying to stop himself from smiling, explaining his fears and trying not to get ahead of himself. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get his hopes up. That had already happened, but. But. There was no holding it all back now, but he could try. For pride reasons. Only for pride. 

Just as they were finishing and about ready to pack up, one of Gerard’s friends (who had joined them a few minute earlier, still a little fucked up from the night before-- he hadn’t stopped drinking until five in the morning) made a gross sound at the back of his throat.

“Yo, Cesc,” he said with a shit-eating grin, “There’s your boy.” He half-stood in front of his chair. “Sergio…” He grinned the same shit-eating grin, and Cesc wanted to slide off the chair and burn to death slowly beneath the table. “Heyyyyy.” He extended the word so long Cesc had time to contemplate death between the Ys. 

Cesc didn’t look up until Gerard’s anonymous, annoying, and unfortunately all-knowing friend had finished speaking. And there he was, striding through the dining hall with his head down, features scrunched up from the one-sided conversation with the heckler at Cesc’s table. Cesc smiled with the corners of his mouth and raised his hand in greeting. Sergio didn’t meet his eyes. 

He remembered the walk back from the dorm. The mist. The way it dripped down his cheeks like tears. 

Back at the dorm, he was folding laundry with Gerard. “That was weird,” he said in a strange, light voice. 

+

The semester ended with a whimper. Finals were coming fast and hard, and Cesc couldn’t handle them. That was the plain, god-awful truth. He just couldn’t handle them. After a semester of partying and slacking off--having nights he would never forget nor completely remember, living in the blur that made things worthwhile, obsessing over a boy he only knew in the confines of his own mind-- he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look down at all his textbooks and learn a semester in a few days. But he tried. And his friends gave him credit for trying while also giving him the constant reality checks that didn’t make things easier: 

“Well… you know, if you had learned that earlier…” 

“If you had actually shown up to class that day…” 

“Maybe you should have actually studied this weekend instead of going out.”

“Yeah? You’ve been studying all day, Cesc? How was the Hockey Formal?” 

And on and on and on until he stuffed his headphones in his ears and didn’t stop his music until well past dinnertime. 

There was a moment later, right before his language exam at eight the next morning, when he was speaking to a kid from his class and a girl from their dorm. They were talking about her Practicum and how speaking Spanish to the professor was remarkably stressful, and Cesc shared his experiences learning a fucking dead language and how maybe Practicum, while painful, was actually useful-- and they argued back and forth for awhile until the obnoxious but sweet girl agreed to disagree, and Cesc thought about putting his headphones back in. 

In the middle of the conversation, Cesc looked at the battery on his phone and saw that it was quite low and, being lazy and irritated, he decided to just shove it facedown on the floor instead of using it until it died. He’d check it later. There were no texts he really needed to see anyway. All his friends were getting eggs and bacon and sausage from the midnight finals food service at the student union. 

So he continued their talk about languages, and the boy across from Cesc began testing him on spelling and conjugations and declensions until his head was fuzzy and he was truly aware of how little he knew. It was incredible, really, how he’d floated through the semester without picking up any knowledge. 

Gerard returned to interrupt the studying with a plate full of bacon, grinning from ear to ear. “I texted you if you wanted some bacon, but you didn’t reply. I just got extra anyway. If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.” 

“Oh, shit.” He picked up his phone and promptly dropped it. He felt sick. “Holy shit,” he whispered, and he bent to grab his phone again, standing up and pressing at it desperately, but the screen was going through the process of shutting down. It went black. 

“What is it?” 

“He fucking texted me,” Cesc said, trying not to yell or stamp his foot or cry or do anything that betrayed how desperate he was for this contact. “He fucking-- and my phone just died. I need a charger right now. He texted me like twenty minutes ago, and I didn’t see it until now, and I--” 

Gerard grabbed his phone, and they ran upstairs, books and papers and bacon forgotten on the table. 

They jammed the phone into the charger, and Cesc yelled something about going to pee while they waited for it to turn back on. He raced to the bathroom and washed his hands repeatedly, trying to slow his breathing. 

“You okay, man?” It was a boy from his floor, short and athletic and shy. Cesc knew him through Gerard. He didn’t go out much, though he could have since he seemed to be well acquainted with all the athletes but the American football players. 

“Yeah,” Cesc said with a forced laugh. “Just so stressed about school, you know?” 

And it occurred to him, in the madness of that moment in the bathroom, that he’d been obsessing over this same boy since October, nearly the whole semester. It had gotten him into a bed, and it had gotten him the kisses he wanted, but he was panicking and panicking, and classes had buried him while he was drinking to make himself bold. 

“Oh, yeah, same. But don’t worry,” the boy said kindly, “You’re so smart. You’ll be fine.” 

Cesc smiled, wondering what on earth could have given Leo the impression that Cesc was smart. Of all things, smart. He normally just got “alcoholic waste of space” and “drug-induced coma in his future” from the people in his building. 

He walked slowly back to his room. Gerard was waiting by the phone. 

“I can’t fucking believe I didn’t see that twenty minutes ago.” Still, finals were far from his mind. Even after seeing the error of his ways, there was nothing he could do to stop the feeling that made him behave so erratically. 

“Check the text. It’s probably good you didn’t respond anyway because you’re fucking obsessed, and you don’t want him knowing that.” 

“Yeah,” Cesc said. “Thanks.” 

It was a fucking “Hey” with a winky face. He almost threw something, but he just nodded and sat on the bed, and shook his head repeatedly. He quickly sent back, “Hey what’s up.” Casual enough. But there was a sinking feeling in his chest, and, deep down, he knew he had waited too long. He had seen it too late. Nothing was going to happen, and maybe it was better that nothing would. After all, he still had that pesky final at eight the next morning. 

He took his phone and the charger back to the basement to study, but the boy from his class was gone, and there was a group of Philosophy majors having a discussion on the plush chairs in the center of the room. Gerard joined them to study for his final in two days. Cesc sat alone in the back, checking his phone every two minutes, knowing with growing certainty that no response would come. 

And none did. He stayed up all night reviewing words. His vision grew blurry and, this time, not from drinking. He was distracted and annoyed, thinking about what could have been that night. What could have been. What could have been. What could have -- it was a spell that would keep him up all night. By the time he went to sleep a little past four in the morning, he was still half-hoping that a reply would come, even more than he was hoping he would pass that damn final. He didn’t even get through half the chapters. He finally went to bed, closing his book on his thumb and using it as a pillow. 

He didn’t wake up until twenty past seven the next morning. Panicking and throwing things around the room, he dressed. Checked his phone and finished dressing. Still no reply, but there was a little hope growing in his heart because he hadn’t initiated this time. It felt good to not always be chasing something down. 

He took his final, still distracted. They had to translate a passage of Plato, and he couldn’t even make out more than ten words. He struggled through the entire test, leaving a few blank and making up most everything else. By the time he finished, he knew he had failed and he left the classroom with half the time still to go. 

Ill-fated and restless, he continued back to his dorm, happy to be done with all finals but one but unhappy that the semester was not closing with something more meaningful. He wanted one last chance to see Sergio. He wanted some kind of greater feeling, like maybe he had done something worthwhile. Sure, he’d had the time of his life. He’d made friends he would kill for, friends he knew had his back no matter what. Friends he could say with no measure of doubt that he loved. That all meant something to him, but he had always been the sort of person to dwell on the problems, just for something to think about. When his mind grew ill at ease, he poked at problems that were sometimes better left alone. 

The last two days went by filled with nothing. The campus slowly emptied. Students with suitcases appeared on landings to say goodbye to their friends. It rained. Footsteps echoed. The good seats were empty in the library again. 

He went to the gym with a stack of flashcards and walked until he’d memorized fifteen, breaking into a run when he couldn’t handle how the extra weight on his hips felt. Looking in the mirror, he could tell the toll alcohol had taken on his body, and he hated in silence and kept running. His flashcards lay abandoned next to his water bottle. 

He took adderall to study for his last final. Made about three hundred flashcards by cutting up the slideshows he’d printed off his teacher’s online links page. He was a madman, trying to distract himself with studying. That’s not how it should have been, but that’s how it was. School was merely a distraction from life. 

After forty-eight hours straight of being awake, unable to sleep after the high the adderall had given him-- partly due to stress about the last final but mostly due to that feeling it had given him, like he was finally accomplishing things, like he could finally think about what he was supposed to be thinking about-- he finally took his last final. He maybe struck a C. More likely, a C-. 

He texted Sergio one last time, just to establish that final connection before break. The topic was nothing exciting, though having a conversation with the other boy still elicited that dreadful excitement like hurtling off a cliff or holding a revolver to one’s own forehead. 

He asked what Sergio had planned, making it sound like he was looking for a party. Of course he was. That’s how Sergio knew him, always looking for a goddamn party, never looking for something more meaningful. No wonder their relationship was the way it was. They couldn’t see each other through the fog. 

Sergio answered nicely, even adding in a “haha” for good measure, to make it more casual. That’s how things had been at the beginning, sort of, back when Sergio was interested for real. Back when the replies weren’t so mechanical and brief. After that first September dream that Cesc had swatted away with his disinterest, Sergio’s replies had been teetering on the edge of rude, sometimes spilling over. Whether it was overcompensation for being blown off week after week or simply Sergio’s style reserved for people who couldn’t take a hint, Cesc couldn’t tell. He could only tell that it hurt. And, again, it was the uncertainty that killed him, the painful state of not-knowing and only overthinking. 

In the end, Cesc answered one of Sergio’s texts with a sort of finality but still leaving it open in case Sergio wanted to continue the conversation. Sergio did not. The semester ended. Gerard cleaned out his half of the room early, and Cesc cleaned the room hours before his flight. The semester was over. It was all over. He had to wait nearly a month to return and start everything again. The monotony of the winter stretched ahead, and all he could grasp on to was the past and whatever shred of reality he could forcefeed himself: what had happened and what could have been, the hot sun that would bear down on him at home and the cold blanket of snow he would return to, that humid September and the mist that washed down his cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> I miss publishing stuff on here, so I'm going to come back to it. I made tons of playlists for this shit. I can post later.


End file.
